my phone

About.me’s Tony Conrad on Slack, Applauze, and why he just can’t get into Secret

It’s one thing to fund and advise start-ups from the outside, but it’s a whole other thing to start and run them yourself. That makes people like Tony Conrad, who work on both sides of the entrepreneurial street, particularly interesting. On one hand, he is the C.E.O. and co-founder of About.me, a site that creates digital profiles that are easier to build than a Web site but more sophisticated than your traditional one-page résumé. On the other hand, he is a co-founder and partner at True Ventures, a venture capital firm with brands like MakerBot and Blue Bottle Coffee in its portfolio. A world traveler, who made Jakarta, New Delhi, and Paris home before settling in San Francisco, Conrad also mobilized Silicon Valley during the 2012 election as a national co-chair of technology for Obama. We spoke to the coffee obsessive and “sporadic triathlete” about his iPhone 5S.

Phone: iPhone 5S Gold

Case: “I'm a bit of a klutz with my phone, so my case is really important. I know design aficionados want to keep it pure, but I have a WordPress case and it saves me at least five times each day when I drop my phone.”

Last text:Kevin Rose, entrepreneur, close friend. “I just texted him about some silly stuff that makes us laugh. He’s a funny guy and we enjoy throwing a little humor into the mix.”

Last app used:FitBit. “I wake up bouncing and need to workout first thing in the morning to get things in balance. I'm hooked on FitBit and their app. It’s awesome to track activity, sync stats, and reach goals. I find that I check their app to see how I’m doing multiple times throughout each day.”

Most-used app:Slack. “It has mostly replaced team e-mail, I.M., Basecamp, and Campfire, along with the associated stresses. It took my team less than 24 hours to get everyone on board and is easily one of my most important productivity tools.”

Last download:Secret. “All posts are completely anonymous, so people can write whatever they like. I really wanted to like Secret. It’s hugely popular in tech circles right now, and I like the concept in theory, but I'm a fairly happy, positive person, and I find there are posts on the app that can be mean-spirited, with a lot of self-loathing that makes most other social apps look refreshingly lighthearted by comparison.”

Most surprising app on home screen:Applauze.“This app keeps me in the loop on what’s happening in town and it makes buying tickets fun and easy. The design is so clean and intuitive. Like Uber, it’s one of those apps I didn’t know I needed but now use it all the time.”

Most beautifully designed app: Yahoo Weather. “I love how the images for each city I'm tracking change throughout the day to reflect the weather. I also like apps that connect people in unsuspecting ways. Like, my family and friends live in such very different places. When I check out their weather I somehow feel a bit connected to them.”

Least-used app:Reminders. “Turns out I don’t like to micromanage myself.”

Voicemail greeting? “I actually don’t use voicemail. When my voicemail picks up, my message asks people not to leave a message. Voicemails are so unstructured that it turns my phone into a burden.”

Clean inbox? No. “I’m always behind on e-mail and it makes me feel so guilty. My pathetic tip is to declare e-mail bankruptcy, deleting everything so you can see what resurfaces. Of course, I don’t have the courage to do that, but it seems to work for others.”

Text or call? Neither. “Although I get a ton of texts and phone calls, I much prefer having everything go to e-mail. I essentially treat e-mail like yellow Post-its.”

Remaining battery? 9%. “My phone dies all the time. I never leave home without a charger, but sometimes I get distracted and forget to charge it, so I also have a back-up Mophie charger.”